We don't become who we are in isolation.

I've spent much of my life trying to make sense of people and what shapes us. One question keeps returning: why do some equally capable people flourish, while others lose confidence, shrink themselves or struggle to find their place?

Our culture tends to look first at the individual: if you're struggling, try harder, be more resilient. Those questions matter, but they're not the whole story. People make sense in context.

We're shaped by our relationships, families, workplaces and communities, and by what we've learned is safe, expected or possible. What feels like a personal limitation, or even a fault, is often an intelligent adaptation: something that once kept us safe, helped us belong or enabled us to achieve.

And people are far less fixed than we imagine. I've watched confidence, creativity and capacity emerge, not because someone became a different person, but because the relationships, expectations or environment around them changed.

Understanding those patterns is the heart of my work.

How I came to this work

My curiosity is personal as well as professional. Like many people drawn to helping professions, I was trying to understand myself as much as anyone else.

For [more than twenty years working with people, and over ten as a coach], I've worked with thoughtful professionals and leaders in New Zealand and internationally. Working alongside hundreds of people has challenged my assumptions and deepened my understanding of what it means to be human. Coaches don't stand outside the human experience. We all bring our own histories and blind spots, and the work is holding them with enough awareness that they deepen, rather than cloud, our capacity to be with others.

My practice draws on trauma-informed work, adult development, leadership psychology and, above all, thousands of conversations with people making sense of their lives.

How I work

I bring experience, evidence-informed frameworks and a deep respect for complexity. My role isn't to tell you who you are, what to do or how to live. It's to explore ideas with you and help you notice.

Most people don't need more advice, especially advice built on someone else's assumptions about them. Together we look at the patterns shaping your life, including some you may not yet see: your relationships and environments, the assumptions you've inherited, and the stories that once made sense but may no longer fit.

I'm interested in what becomes possible when we can see ourselves and our circumstances a little more clearly. If that sounds like the conversation you're looking for, I'd love to hear from you.

A little more about me

I'm a lifelong observer of people and the world around me. I read and learn constantly, I love long, meandering conversations with dear colleagues, and I write Fieldnotes on Substack, exploring the questions that keep me curious.

I'm also an HSP myself, so my interest in relationships, human development and the environments that help people flourish isn't only professional.

Outside work, I love animals, plants, nature and calm, expansive spaces. People often tell me they find me calming and feel safe with me. I suspect that's part of who I am and part of how I've learned to be with people, and I'm glad when it gives my clients a little more space to breathe, think and find their own way forward.

Qualifications & Credentials

I'm an ICF PCC-credentialed coach with over ten years' experience. My training combines coaching, developmental psychology and assessment, so I can work with you on the practical and the deeper layers of what you're facing.

Professional coaching credential

• ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC)

Coach training

• Intensive Coach Training, Results Coaching Systems (now NeuroLeadership Group), plus further Mastery Coaching courses with them, including brain-based Coaching and using the SCARF model.

• Trauma-Informed Coach, Moving the Human Spirit

• Conversations at the Growing Edge and Dancing at the Edge, Growth Edge Coaching / Cultivating Leadership

• Professional Narrative Enneagram Practitioner, The Narrative Enneagram

Assessments and instruments (certified or accredited)

• Global Leadership Profile Coach, Global Leadership Associates

• Vertical Mindset Indicator, Adeption

• My World View, Global Leadership Associates

• LSI/GSI Accredited Practitioner (360), Human Synergistics

• Saville Consulting Wave, Saville Consulting Asia Pacific

• About My Brain i4 360, About My Brain

Instruments I use in practice

• Gallup Strengths and StandOut: used with clients for around ten years

• Leadership Circle 360: I've coached executives through their results (I'm not a certified practitioner)

Additional training

• Vertical Organisational Development, Global Leadership Associates

• Masterful Coaching, BeDo

• Mindfulness Coaching Mastery, Mindfulness Mastery (Satyam Chalmers)

• Love Work Leader, Marcus Buckingham

Specialisation: Highly Sensitive People

• Listed as an executive coach on Dr Elaine Aron's Highly Sensitive Person website

• Highly Sensitive Human Academy Professional Training, accredited by the Association for Coaching and IACTM. Expected completion: December 2026.

Education

• Bachelor of Business Management

• Postgraduate Certificate in Career Development

• Secondary School Teaching Certificate